Wendy Vardaman reviews The Gravity Soundtrack for the January/February 2009 issue of Women's Review of Books. Read the review on Poetry Daily.
Read Tom Hunley's review of The Gravity Soundtrack in Poemeleon.
The October 2007 issue of Louisville Magazine featured a nice article on me and the book.
“I have strong ties to Louisville because I’ve lived here for 13 years, but I never really felt tied to Kentucky itself as a place the way so many Kentucky writers do,” says soft-spoken but spirited poet Erin Keane. Instead, her appeal broadens beyond the Bluegrass; her themes are relevant in a more temporal rather than spatial way. “The pop culture is really what binds all suburban kids at some point,” she says. “It’s cable television; it’s MTV, alternative music, all that stuff. It depends on when you grew up, not where you grew up.”
Keep reading the article and check out John Nation's great photograph, taken in Mag Bar right here in Louisville.
“Think of Joan Jett crashing the Miss America Pageant and reading her poems for the talent competition! And winning! It’s deus ex machina on adrenalin. How refreshing to read a book that fills the modern world with mystery once again. Erin Keane’s first book helps us ‘find the coiled infinite inside’ so that we end up fluent in the pure language of awe.” —Rane Arroyo, author of The Portable Famine and winner of the John Ciardi Poetry Prize
“With a confident and alert use of language, this poet sets out to discover both the ground of what matters and the music to accompany the discovery. In poems that by turns whisper secrets, belt out hard truths, and deliver lines like a shrewd stand-up comic, Erin Keane has put together a book that is as entertaining as it is compelling. What a fine mix of irreverence, insight, craft, and intelligence. The Gravity Soundtrack rocks.” —Greg Pape, Poet Laureate of Montana and author of American Flamingo
“I’ve been a groupie of Erin Keane’s poems for years and thought a full-length collection of her hip verses long overdue. The Gravity Soundtrack was worth the wait. Poem after poem here will make you smile, pause, think a little, feel like flirting. The pages brim with music and bourbon, myths and ghosts, a dreamy nostalgia for a past that never quite worked bolstered by a melancholic wish for a future that probably won’t happen. Still, somehow, the rhythms swing and the pervasive feeling is buoyant celebration. These are poems that want to party! Keane has a sharp eye, a melodic ear, a sassy mouth, and a big ole generous heart that keeps getting in the way. Nearly every one of her tunes sounds like a hit.” —Gaylord Brewer